As with everything else involving Boris Johnson, theatricality looms large in the dispute over whether his WhatsApps, diaries and notebooks should be released without redaction to the official Covid-19 inquiry. The Cabinet Office had until 4pm on Thursday to comply with a demand from the inquiry chair, Lady Hallett, to hand them all over. After the deadline passed, the standoff soon morphed into a high-stakes court challenge by ministers. Apart from anything else, this means further delays to an already slow inquiry process.
This dispute could have been seen coming. Ever since Lady Hallett was appointed in 2021 to conduct what Mr Johnson called “a forensic and thoroughgoing” inquiry into the UK’s response to the pandemic, it was blindingly clear that she would need to see all the evidence about the government’s handling. Since Lady Hallett was appointed under the Inquiries Act 2005, it was also clear that she had the powers to compel witnesses and evidence. Her moral position was strengthened further this week when Mr Johnson handed all his papers to the Cabinet Office and said they should be passed to the inquiry.
That pulled a lot of rug from under the government’s feet. For once, though, this dispute is not primarily about Mr Johnson. Instead it concerns, first, the public credibility of the way that British government does modern public inquiries and, second, the extent to which accountability of government is practicable in a digital and doubting world. Mr Johnson only moves centre stage over a third issue: the impact of all this on his own career.
The main issue is whether the inquiry has the power to decide which documents it can study. Lady Hallett says that power is hers, given by law. The government, represented by the Cabinet Office, claims that it can decide some material is “unambiguously irrelevant”. Law and politics say Lady Hallett is right. The courts will now decide. There will be terrible reputational damage to the inquiry if the government succeeds. The way it tried to duck and weave about the material during May adds to this.
An important second issue is how the inquiry should cope with the digital revolution. When communication was confined to spoken conversations, of which no verbatim record exists, or to paper, which tends to be more formal and considered, the government could control its own message. In the social media age, these ways have been swamped by digital messaging, where protocols and habits of expression are vastly different. As Rafael Behr argues in Politics: A Survivor’s Guide: “There is an element of performance in digital interactions that has little equivalent in analogue communication.”
The Covid inquiry has to navigate the reality that much, even most, communication in government and politics is now digital. The medium changes the way that discussions of all kinds take place. This brings dangers, which Matt Hancock’s Covid-era WhatsApps illustrated. Mr Johnson’s are unlikely to be less performative or less embarrassing. But it is not Lady Hallett’s job to protect him.
Finally, there is Mr Johnson himself. He has now done a U-turn over demands for his papers, going from refusing outright, claiming security is at stake, to saying everything should be handed over. With his future prospects in politics at risk, he is posing for the moment as reasonable and open. But he may not be so forthcoming when he finally gives evidence to Lady Hallett at the end of this year.
